༺ My Last Frozen Heartbeat ༻
by Seloue Bellamy
Summary: Confronted with Anna's abduction, Elsa embarks on a journey that will decide her fate... What happens when the origins of Elsa's powers are finally unearthed? - Not only will the entire world hang in the balance, but Elsa will have to battle foes, indulge piracy, find her sister… and trust a certain sideburns-sporting prince with a frozen heart.
**༺** **Until my Last Frozen Breath** **༻**

 _The highest point in the Crowned Lands has forever been marked by mystery._

 _Villagers will tell you that a Queen saved the lands there or perhaps that a sorry man died there in a terrible storm. They will tell you that it is the place where the ice comes from every winter, and to where it retreats every spring._

 _By now, even the shapes of the valleys, the names of the peaks and the faces of the people have changed and no trace remains of what happened there so very long ago._

 _Yet, dear listener, if you would like to hear a story, I have a great one to tell._

 _If you are faint of heart, make it known now. Despite what you have heard, this story is no fairy-tale, yet one thing is certain – our world was forged by the love that unites us._

 _This is the very love that once saved us. All of us._

 _But first, before we delve into the adventures and heroics, laughs and heartaches to come, perhaps, dear listener, you would like to hear the very beginning of our tale. No?_

 _Let us truly begin…_

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* * *

 _The sky is awake…_

Elsa looked up at the sky, at the pastel colours flirting with the Milky Way as they danced across the night's canvas. Elsa smiled sweetly, admiring the viridian veins and pink palpitations of the Aurora Borealis. She always believed there was something ethereal about them. Something soothingly _calm_ within their chaos…

It reminded her of Anna. Her younger sister was, after all, Elsa's dearest chaos.

If only the Queen had known that a mere handful of hours later, she would find herself looking up at the same lively sky with eyes that would never see it the same again. Such calm was soon to be _broken_. Smashed to pieces. Destroyed… It would all become tainted by the memories of a fiery siege on her beautiful home, the return of a dreamy-eyed enemy and the abduction of the only person in this world she had promised to _always_ protect.

In a handful of hours, the stunning Snow Queen would fall to her knees as the castle took on an arctic sheen. Her ice would spread like a creeping flowers, extinguishing the fires that were to lick at the walls of her childhood palace as she tried to calm the storm raging on within her.

But for now, she simply took one long breath of crisp, cool air and turned towards the heat and noise of the ballroom. She had walked out onto the spacious balcony for a moment of respite, but there was no escaping the light and noise of the ball, which filtered through the arched colonnade and stretched across the marble floors towards her dainty feet.

Inside she caught Anna's eye, cornered by two boring old trade ministers who must have been boring the Princess' socks off. Anna motioned to Elsa silently, begging for rescue with her mannerisms and facial contortions.

Elsa covered her mouth to supress a giggle.

Elsa didn´t have her gloves on, and that still made her feel a little bit… well, _naked_ to be honest. But Anna was insistent that there should be no more hiding away. But for Elsa, it made being around so many people a little nerve-wracking.

Elsa began to walk back into the ballroom slowly, trading the silver glow of starlight for the warm hue of ice chandeliers – Elsa's very own design.

She smiled at her own carelessness. In her attempt at making them intricate, she had forgotten about one tiny, unimportant detail: the candles were slowly melting her icy handiwork.

Luckily, the more pompous ladies and duchesses had taken to wearing elaborate wigs and head-pieces, so Elsa hoped they wouldn´t notice if the ceiling was dripping… a little.

She swooped in to save Anna by pointing out Kristoff, who stood awkwardly in the corner trying to figure out what cold substance had just dripped down the collar of his smartest new suit. _Oops._

Anna excitedly pulled Kristoff into the thick of the dance, joining into the _Allemande's_ rhythm and attempting to teach it to her blonde beau as they both slotted into the dance. The Ball was diplomatic in nature, of course, but Anna had a flare which could turn even royal business visits into full-fledged jamborees, insisting on dressing up her dance partner – poor, unassuming Kristoff.

Elsa would have laughed at Anna's antics, but the dancefloor looked too beautiful for that; like a kaleidoscope of swirling embroidered skirts, intricate headgear and colourful breeches swaying along with the effervescent music and laughter. You see, when Arendelle had finally opened its ports to trade, mercantilism had brought more than mere commodities and alliances; it carried with it the influence of the lush Rococo style that had so bewitched the mainland. Elsa found it garishly over the top, yet the colours were mesmerizing. The Queen had never seen so many colours and patterns in one room.

Despite her composed demeanour, she secretly envied the way such colour and gaiety made Anna light up. Colours and music were the stuff Anna knew, as if such merriment coursed through her veins. Anna was in her element that night; an element as far removed from ice as possible.

Elsa wanted nothing more than to escape to the library for the night.

Of course, Kristoff looked similarly out of place, as if he wanted to be playing the lute in the royal stables with Sven rather than playing politics with moustached ministers. But there was one place he'd rather be above any other: by Anna's side… even if that entailed Anna busying herself with chocolate fondants and French fancies whilst demanding decadent dances and quick kisses.

Poor guy, he had the dancing skills of a plank of wood; stiff and square.

Any other night, Elsa would have slipped away then, knowing the Kristoff would watch Anna and that Anna would handle the rest of the socialising. Very few people approached the cold Queen outside of regal matters anyway.

But tonight was different. Elsa knew it was, even if she could never have imagined how very different it would forlornly become. Oh, how good things can be twisted.

Despite this lack of impossible foresight, Elsa did know how the next few minutes would pan out. Anna didn´t always realise it, but her elder sister could read her like an open book.

Anna had been trying to ask Elsa a question for at least a month now, but her awkward nature resulted in tangled words and knotted intentions. Yet Elsa knew that, after the ice harvest, that shindig was the perfect time for Anna to make her proposal known. No pun intended.

It seemed like they were all caught up in a fast-paced hurricane. A mere 17 months ago, Elsa had frozen her own kingdom and Anna had selflessly rescued her from her own tormented storm. Anna had been the one to convince the guilt-stricken Queen that real monsters were often disguised as good people and that Elsa was the opposite. A good person made to fit into the role of a monster.

Now, Elsa sat on the throne of Arendelle and the true monster, banished Prince _Hans_ , lay at the bottom of the ocean somewhere. She didn´t smile when that thought crossed her mind, but she wasn´t about to cry either.

At first, there had been rumours that Elsa might have sent the storm which destroyed the Southern ship and drowned its shamed royal prisoner. But as more and more dignitaries met the royal sisters, the rumours were soon doused.

Hans was dead, and the sisters' lives were just beginning. Even his memory seemed to have faded.

 _Almost._

The memory of a moment involving Hans was holding Anna back now.

So as Anna excitedly skipped towards Elsa, Kristoff in tow, the composed Queen was hardly surprised.

"Elsa?"

The Queen smiled sweetly, sweeping a strand of rebellious pale hair from her gaze.

"Erm… ok, so I'm just gonna say it, I was wondering, well," Anna began nervously whilst Kristoff smiled _veeery_ awkwardly, "that is, _we_ were both hoping…"

Pause. The end of the _Allemande_ filled the air between them with silence where there were supposed to be words. Then a sweet _Minuet_ began.

"I mean it's a little awkward because the last time I asked you a question like this, you kind of froze everything and you… well, I…" Anna stopped, her eyes darting quickly between Kristoff's grimacing, toothy grin and Elsa's raised brows.

"Kristoff wants to ask you something." She spoke quickly, pulling her hulking partner in front of herself like a shield.

He was a fumbling softie, he really was.

"Well, I… Elsa, I mean your Majesty… You look lovely… especially the new gloves…"

Elsa looked at her hands. It was a fine veneer of intricate ice covering her hands, not lace. Maybe that had made Anna less forward than her usual happy-go-lucky self. Elsa's powers were rather unfastened, and it sometimes worried Anna.

It was still a sore subject for Elsa.

"I know what you're going to ask." She said, placing her frosted hands behind her back and straightening her posture.

"Oh…" he sincerely deflated. "I mean, I know I'm not royalty, and I can´t promise any alliances… and I may have terrible table manners; and I know that I grunt at Ministers and sing to reindeers; and I prefer trolls to people and I know you remember the time when I thought Duchess Elàin de la Rosses' wig was a cat and it somehow caught fire, but how was I supposed to know she was _bald_ underneath? I know, I-I- **I'm** _ **no prince**_ **…"**

"Kristoff, please tell me you're going somewhere with this." Anna whispered.

"I was hoping you were going to sweep in and explain how I was a 'fixer upper' in progress."

Elsa cut short their conversation before it could escalate any further. "The last time Anna introduced me to a _prince_ , he tried to remove my head from my shoulders."

Anna and Elsa shared a sisterly look, roughly translatable to ' _ah, good times, eh?'_

"Kristoff," the Queen looked at her beautiful sister, who was smiling softly now, "you may not be a prince by blood, but that doesn´t mean that Anna hasn´t found _her_ prince in you."

"If Anna is happy, she will _always_ have my blessing."

There was an unspoken exchange of words between both sisters. One spoke in pride, the other in gratitude. Both were dialects of the same language: _love_.

The happiness in the couple's smile was contagious as they grasped hands and smiled like children. Elsa almost wanted to shoot _snow confetti_ out of her fingertips… _buuuut_ maybe that wasn´t quite in-keeping with her usually royal composure.

"You all look so happy… did you see the chocolate fountain in the kitchen too?" Olaf quizzed, appearing between the happy couple and the Queen, looking up at them in joyful wonder, as ever.

It was instantly obvious that Olaf had been in the kitchens. The brown chocolate around his mouth was proof of that much. Elsa could only imagine what Sven would do if he saw Olaf's carrot dipped in scrumptious chocolate like that.

"No, Olaf! Something even better!" Anna beamed, kneeling beside him. His coal eyes widened, mouth agape, as he took in one long, excited breath.

Elsa briefly wondered if Anna had mentioned her engagement to the little snowman before she had worked up the courage to ask her. But then –

"You saw the big white cake too!?"

"Cake?" Anna and Kristoff asked simultaneously.

Elsa laughed. So much for surprises. With one well-placed look at Kai, her diligent servant, the music was hushed and an entirely new tune was taken up once the guests began clearing the dancefloor. It wasn´t as if the guests had been choreographed to clear some space when Elsa's gave the signal though.

No – the fact that a massive white cake was being carted into the room as the musicians played a bridal chorus was incentive enough for all the guests to move aside.

Despite the Olaf-sized bite taken out of one of the tiers, Elsa had to tip her hat to the pastry chef. It was definitely a gorgeous looking dark chocolate and champagne marble cake.

But the best part was the icing.

 **༄** **…** _To the Ever-lasting Happiness of my Dearest Anna & her Darling Kristoff_ **…** **༄**

A long message required a large cake. Simple.

"Elsa!" Anna was pulsating with happiness and shock when she pushed past Kristoff and Olaf to jump at her sister and encase her in a big, _warm_ hug. Suffice to say, Olaf pushed Kristoff into the fray before joining in himself. "Warm hugs are the best."

Anna laughed as she pulled away, holding Elsa at arm's length. "Thank you."

"Thank _you_ , Anna."

After that, the new couple was surrounded by a crowd of dancing diplomats and mingling politicians, who had stopped clapping and now wanted Anna and Kristoff to receive their _personal_ congratulations – with an eye to curry favour, of course.

As they swarmed around Anna and Kristoff with their prying questions about babies, wedding gowns and diamond rings, Elsa could easily squeeze away.

But before slipping away completely, the queen looked back one last time. At the person she loved the most in the world.

She wished she was more like Anna at times like these. It would make all the emotions she was feeling so much easier to get across. Instead, she whispered to herself,

" _You deserve all the happiness in the world, Anna."_

Anna glanced at Elsa with concern as her sister quietly escaped her own ball, but she was being interrogated by too many guests to follow.

 _Maybe that was Elsa's plan anyway_ , Anna mused. 'Alone time' was still a thing Elsa occasionally enjoyed.

Elsa sighed in relief as she finally found herself away from the heat of the crowd and the ruckus of celebration. God, she hated mingling with ministerial visitors. It physically drained her. Well, people in general did, actually.

Most people, anyway.

She looked to the sky and noticed a few ugly storm clouds drifting in. she had to stop letting her thoughts deepen so darkly, or she might cause a storm. With so many boats in the harbour, that would be a terrible thing. Again. She knew she was being silly, but she was terrified that Anna might drift away from her now. _Terrified._

It was an unfounded, irrational, unfair fear. Anna had so much love in her heart that she could love her _and_ Kristoff and many others without having to fraction any emotions.

She tried to angle her thought-stream towards shallower waters. She wondered if her masterpieces, her chandeliers, had melted yet.

By the time she had organised her mind, she realised that she had walked farther than she thought, meandering aimlessly into the town. It was quiet, but for the odd echo of laughter. Perhaps that was from the castle.

Elsa stopped then, to look back at her home alight with life a slight distance away. It is funny, truly shocking even, how a little distance can put everything back into perspective.

Huh. Either the palace staff had brought in candelabras, or her chandeliers were still going strong and lighting up the ballroom with its arched colonnade. She could still tell from this distance exactly which room was where. She turned to continue her walk towards the docks, she was so close she could smell the briny air –

Then suddenly her heart jumped up her throat. A loud, earth-shattering clatter sent shockwaves down her spine. It was coming from the castle.

A banging and whistling seemed to accompany it, like a morbid crescendo, filling the Queen's panicked mind with the mismatched tempo of a dire marching band – louder and louder even as she whipped her head round towards the castle and her sister –

 _Oh._

They had set the fireworks off early. Huh… she had specified they were to be set off tomorrow when the Foreign Ministers arrived from Corona, Selimberg, the Southern Isles, the Våenda Straits… Elsa's blood froze.

 _Screams_ filled the air.

Horrible, blood-curdling echoes bounced off the fjords.

As the townspeople woke up to panic and light began to illuminate the square house windows, a very disturbing realisation settled itself at the pit of Elsa's stomach.

The first loud bang had been a canon shot. Straight through a castle wall… it had clearly hit its mark: the fireworks, which were now setting themselves off and exploding into colourful fire within the palace itself and through its roof.

A second bang was heard, as ear-splitting as the last. The tempest raging through her thoughts was already hard enough to control, but this fear… fear was almost uncontainable.

By now, the panic had seeped into the town as the good people of Arendelle had stirred. Elsa didn´t have time to assure her subjects right then – she was too frenzied herself.

She began to run as if there were hellhounds snapping at her heels, lifting her heavy baroque skirts above her knees, leaving a trail of black ice and snow-capped footprints in her wake. The sky swirled above her and it took all of her courage to contain the storm brewing inside.

Who was attacking Arendelle? The ships at harbour were all allies, she was sure. Who would attack her kingdom like _this_? By the time she'd reach the eastern-most edge of the palace, where she had previously left mid-party, the situation became clearer and the air _cooler._

There was a sinister ship at harbour now. A black warship, built like a frigate, which had not been there before. How on earth had it slipped through the security checks at the mouth of Arendelle's narrow bay?

Then she saw it. Just outside the bay lay at least a dozen more of these sinister black ships. They had overpowered the security and were now a fully-armed fleet with access to an ill-prepared, easily pillaged kingdom. She willed herself to keep her growing storm aimed at keeping those boats from coming any closer… but the boat in Arendelle harbour was already within firing range and needed to be tackled.

The fireworks popped and cracked as a second round of cannonballs barraged through the air and through the front wall of the historical palace.

But sod the palace, _Anna_ was in there! Elsa had to stop the black ship from doing any more harm.

Amidst the screaming and the destruction it was causing, was Elsa's sister. Kristoff may have been tenaciously willing to protect Anna with his life… but few shields can be as effective as the powers of winter when wielded by an angry sibling.

And _boy_ was Elsa angry. The temperature was proof of that.

Her anger wasn´t the sort to bubble under the surface, red-hot and bursting – no. Elsa's anger was cold under her skin, gushing within her veins like freezing water-currents under fissuring glaciers – a tempest within, reflecting a swirling fury outside in the sky.

A fury which she now directed at freezing the choppy port.

She ran down to the port dockings, wood creaking as it froze around her. The queen slid to a stop on the very ice created under her feet, dangerously close to the ship now. The sheer size of the ship so nearby made her feel insignificant, stopping her in her tracks as it towered above her like a dark, floating shadow. A few shots were aimed her way from the deck so high above, but they were quickly enveloped in shields of ice as she concentrated on trapping the vessel itself.

The black ship had been traversing the waves rather quickly, sails caught in Elsa's gale-storm, so when Elsa forcefully raised her arms towards the sky – the ice rising up the vessel's body like jagged ivy – the whole thing bucked sideways like a careening bull. The body and masts tilted so steeply that two _carronades_ and an unlucky sailor were tossed straight through the quarter-deck, disappearing under ice and wave.

Elsa didn´t have time to spare a second thought on those attacking her home.

Without pause, Elsa turned to freezing the ship's upper deck, freezing the smoothbore cannons until she heard the splintering of wood and knew that the cannonballs were backfiring within the bowels of the sturdy ship.

Then the boat lurched forward, the wind in its black sails bringing life to the hulking sea monster. The boat's sudden jolt splintered and cracked the thick layer of ice covering the harbour and the jagged edges rose up like white peaks.

Elsa had to dive across the docks to avoid the shards of ice jutting forward, destroying the very stretch of docks where Elsa had just stood and knocking the air from her lungs.

The impact against rough wood left Elsa breathless as a spray of ice and splinters rained around her. Her desperate dive had only just landed her safely, she was so close to where the docks had shattered that the edge of her cape was draped over into the icy water, weighing her down even more.

She raised her head and realised in dismay that the vessel was freely moving again. She almost screamed when she finally saw the jagged iron ice-breakers fastened onto the front of the ship, tearing through the ice like tooth through bone.

In a frenzy, she froze as many of the sails as she could, to impede the ship's movement, but she knew she had to get up and get out of there as soon as possible.

She had to get to the castle.

She would just have to protect Anna when she found her, rather than tackling the source of the danger alone… especially as an outburst of her power could very well cause another eternal winter, she wasn´t sure.

She took her cape off and let it sink, running for it as the world around her became a swirling mess of sleet and windswept snowflakes. Yet through it all her eyes briefly caught sight of the flaky paint scrawled on the back of the vessel, yellow on black like a warning – the Silent Seafarer.

After that she let her legs run until they shook beneath her. When she finally got into the castle, she witnessed the chaos first hand.

Many of the guests had fled to the colonnade as the fireworks exploded and the smoke billowed, deeming it safer. However, by the time Elsa arrived, the cannons resumed fire – Elsa didn´t know if they had spares or if they had salvaged some of those which she had iced – meaning that the guests were directly inside the ship's long-range.

As it became clear that the blasts were headed their way, most only had the time to squeal and duck.

Luckily for them, Queen Elsa aimed two blasts of ice at the oncoming tirade, fireballs spitting as they collided with her searing ice. Without pause, her left arm rose to bring up an icy wall, which took the hits and then shattered like a mirror.

The guests were still crumpled on the tiled floor, rococo dresses ruined and faces twisted in fear… but because the ship… they were looking at _Elsa._ Even when she was the hero, their eyes would always see her as something too bizarre to see her for who she was, rather than _what_ she was.

She didn't have time for their unfounded fears.

Elsa turned her glare towards these 'esteemed' guests, relishing in their panicked yelps.

" _ **Go**_ _."_

They didn´t need to be told twice.

Elsa almost snarled as they ran out of the ruined room, practically falling over each other in their panicked rush.

As she began to walk along the open colonnade though, a large explosion went off in the lower bowels of the castle – perhaps the fire had gotten into the boiler room in the servants quarters below. Elsa didn´t know, and there was no time to concoct theories.

The very floor trembled below Elsa's feet, shaking loose one of the marble columns a few rows away from where the queen was stood. It crashed to the floor with a crack, creating fissures and clefts which ran across the tiled floor like fault lines, knocking Elsa's balance completely off as she began to topple backwards. As it turned out, icy shoes didn´t provide the best grip… who would have thought?

As Elsa tumbled backwards, she braced herself with clenched eyes. But… the floor didn´t seem to rush up to meet her backside quite as quickly as she had expected.

She opened her big blue eyes.

Ah. A rough pair of hands had caught her under the arms before gravity had finished its job.

Her first thought when she realised how rough the hands were was of Kristoff, yet when she looked up, into the face of her smarmy 'saviour'… her stomach twisted.

Just when she thought her night couldn´t get any worse. Brilliant.

Her blue eyes met an angular face which was made even starker by a fashionable moustache, strong cheekbones and two deep, soft grey eyes. Elsa wasn´t disappointed because of how handsome he was – she was disappointed because she recognised him instantly as a _snake_.

His dark-cherry hair and the familiar emblem securing his aiguillette to his blazer caused her to tear away from him immediately, as if he were on fire.

She wasn´t about to offer him any gratitude.

Not to a man such as Prince Arne of the Southern Isles.

Arne must have been the envoy sent to assuage tensions after his own brother's… psychopathy, Elsa reckoned. Why had she only just seen him? Had he avoided the ball?

She turned away from him quickly, after a cold glare that is, to resume her search.

But this Arne… he seemed to know exactly what she wanted.

"Queen Elsa, I have no right, I know, but please!" he yelled over the ensuing chaos, but Elsa was leaving had little time for silver-tongues.

"I know where Princess Anna is."

Bang.

Another cannon barraged into the castle somewhere, but it was nowhere near as deafening as Elsa's gaze as she whipped her head back around. Her ice-logged wide eyes met the storm clouds that seemed to shift across Arne's grey orbs; two forces of nature clashing in one glance.

Elsa forgot about everything else. Nothing else mattered.

"Take me to her!"

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* * *

"These pirates are not to be trifled with, Queen Elsa." So they _were_ pirates; up until then, Elsa had merely been guessing. She followed him hurriedly as he led her down the granite corridor, a candle in his hand to light the way.

"I have seen their handiwork before; the Sea's Spite, they like to be called. Mind you, I can think of a few fitting names I wouldn´t mention in your presence, Your Highness." Arne spoke, wiping away the sprinkling of dust that tainted his opulent jacket. It was then that Elsa saw his oddly calloused hands again. They weren´t the soft palms of a prince, she was sure.

"I do not care what name you choose to call them by, I just want them gone." Away from Anna. From Kristoff. Olaf. Her little mismatched family.

Away from her home.

"The Southern Isles' navy has been trying to beat them down for decades, Your Majesty. They seem to spread like the plague, a dark stain across the map. I have… _dealt_ with them on a handful of occasions."

Arne wasn´t like Hans, his words weren't meticulously chosen; they simply filled the silence. Elsa found it oddly annoying.

"I told Anna to stay down here, where she might be safe. She's definitely…" he seemed to curl his lip up into a gnarl then, but Elsa's presence must have been enough to remind him to never insult Princess Anna, "… spirited."

He stopped then, before the door to the small fireplace room. Elsa almost ran into his back, her icy shoes slipping on the wooden floorboards.

 _That_ room.

Anna had told Elsa everything – how this room was almost her place of dying, how Hans had left her there… to freeze. Was it a coincidence?

Her palms were sweating – Elsa _never_ sweats - and her eyes were suddenly prickling. What if what she saw in that room was her worst nightmare?

She would not have been surprised if Hans' knack for recognising and exploiting weaknesses was a family trait.

Elsa was too caught up in her worrying to see the quickly-covered smile on Arne's face. He must have sensed her unease. "I'll go in first."

Stepping into the dark room, he left took the light of the candle through the doorframe with him… leaving Elsa in semi-blackness.

 _Pull yourself together, Elsa. You weren´t raised a coward._ She clenched her fists and stepped into the room, following the light.

Wrong. Move.

Stepping through the threshold in darkness, Elsa couldn´t have seen the two thugs waiting on either side of the entrance. She couldn´t have seen – let alone blocked – the sharp blow aimed at the back of her skull. She couldn´t have seen the fact that Anna wasn´t there.

The hit was loud. She heard the acute strike rattle through her bones before she even felt the sharp pain spread like a flower through her head.

She hissed through her teeth as she felt her knees go wobbly and her vision darken. Her head spun.

No! She had to find Anna…

She felt the carpet against her cheek. She must have slumped to the floor. No, this was all so wrong. She tried to focus, she really did. She became conscious of clashing metal.

Arne was fighting off another man, using his candlestick as a mock-sword to counter the other man weapon. Every time Arne blocked or parried, Elsa saw his struggling countenance in the light of the candles, flames swishing with every blow he aimed. Maybe he was fending off her attackers.

Elsa also recognised the glint of cold metal… a man with a loud voice and green eyes shining like a carnivore's… dirty clothes stuck to cold, wet skin… another pirate?

Her eyes wouldn´t stay open... she wanted to help fight off these ruffians, but she could barely think past the thumping pain in her temples… she needed to find Anna… this was wasting her… time…

Darkness.

Elsa was lost to the world around her.

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* * *

Waking up felt like breaking through the water's surface, finally catching a deep breath. It was like shaking off a heavy dark blanket and finding it was suddenly morning outside.

Elsa woke up with a gasp, recognising the weight of a woollen throw over her shoulders and a familiar voice close to her side.

She couldn't open her eyes.

"Your Majesty? Queen Elsa?" Ah, that was Kai's voice. Good.

There were obviously more people in the room, because this familiar voice turned away "The queen is stirring, her eyelids are fluttering. She will be ok."

 _Define Ok,_ Elsa thought to herself.

Her head was spinning and there was an agonising hammering behind her eyes that could have bedridden a rhino.

But there was a feeling worse than pain; a sinking sensation in her stomach threatened to swallow her up. She had never felt that she'd miss sleeping so much; that she'd miss the blissful darkness… But something at the back of her mind, hidden behind the pain, was trying to tell her that she'd woken up to a nightmare.

A nightmare that wouldn´t end at sunrise.

She finally manages to open her eyes, but instantly regrets it. She doesn´t keep them shut again though. She simply kept on blinking through the light that made her eyes tear up.

It was a bright light, like the first rays of sun on a clear morning. A morning that would not remain clear for long now that Elsa was awake.

Ignoring Kai's worried, yet relieved, chatter, she recognises that she is laid on the floor in _the_ fireplace room. There is also shattered glass on the floor and splatterings of candle wax…

The realisation hurtles into her like a cannonball through a castle wall.

"ANNA!"

Where is my sister? What is going on, Kai?"

She is still on the floor in the library, so at least she hasn´t been out for more than a few hours or they would have moved her to her bed. If it was still there. "What… the ship, is it gone?"

Kai looked at the floor here he knelt beside her, as if it had all been his fault. Elsa then turned with questioning eyes to the rest of the room; there were also two other servants stood in the room quietly, heads bowed, and then… _Kristoff!_

He looked at her with the most determined eyes she'd ever seen, standing forward with the posture of a General on the battlefield. His eyes burnt like embers in their red-rimmed sockets.

"They took her, Elsa."

He was frantic sure, but he used it to fuel his anger. Elsa was almost scared of him.

"They just snatched her and were away…"

 _No no no no no._

"They too Anna and Olaf, then the ship cut out of the harbour like a knife."

It was like someone had tugged the floor from under her feet. Had she not already been sat, she would have fallen.

Kristoff wobbled and fell to his knees in her stead. That's when Elsa noticed that he was hurt as well. Anna wouldn´t have gone without a fight, and Kristoff would not have let go of her without one either.

Wait. No. Not _gone_ , not _let go_ , Elsa rectified.

Never.

She got to her feet. She stood as straight as she could. Now was not the time to mourn, it was the time for facts.

"Anna is the very last princess these sailors should have messed with." She breathed through the pain in her temples. The floor was icing over and the remaining windows were cracking as the cold attacked them. Elsa couldn´t care less.

"Whoever they are and whatever they want, I _will_ have my sister back." She looked at Kristoff, who was holding his side in pain, yet keeping his eyes on her respectfully… hopefully.

"They almost took you too, my Queen." Kai was shaking. He never usually spoke to the Queen so directly, even though Elsa dearly valued his opinion.

"Prince Arne was taken in your stead. You were protected… th-the assailants had no time to steal you away, b-but they very nearly succeeded!" the idea of losing Elsa clearly hurt the servant deeply.

Elsa put a pale hand to her temple to try and stem the headache and gather her thoughts.

"Call an emergency Security Council meeting, Kai. I want all nearby, diplomatic and ministerial officials to present _**any**_ information they have regarding my _sis_ \- the safety of Arendelle."

"What of the Southern Isles?"

"What of them?" she asked, slightly annoyed. What were they to her? That damned colonial Kingdom had been a thorn in her side since her coronation…

"We have already notified King Hallbjörn about his sons' fates, Your Majesty."

She fell silent. Son _ **s**_ … _Plural_?

"I'm sorry, Your Highness, I know it was not my place, I thought that he'd want to know-"

"You did well, Kai. You acted with foresight and I thank you. Sincerely..." That seemed to calm his jitters a bit. "Kai..?"

Kristoff was watching her, Elsa could tell. Whatever information she was about to gain, the ice-harvester wanted to gauge the queen's reaction.

"What do you mean by son _ **s**_?"

"W-well… there was Prince Arne who is now captive and then there is His Royal Highness' _expatriated son_ …"

Expatriated son...

"He dealt the ruffians a deadly blow… he stopped you from being taken from the castle, but he… well, he… that hardly makes him welcome…"

" _Wait_ … _"_

The ice on the ceilings began to spawn jagged, deadly icicles.

" _Hans?!"_

 _She could barely breathe._

"Hans is alive?!"

"Barely." She heard Kristoff grunt. Maybe the broad-shouldered blonde had gotten his hands on the silver-tongued liar.

"Hans is…"

Well, even though that storm at sea hadn´t been enough to drown him, if Elsa found out that he was in any way involved in Anna's abduction, her tempest truly would _kill_ him.

Two Westergards together during one siege seemed a bit too much of a coincidence.

No one could take Anna from her like that and escape her icy fire. Elsa would do anything to get her back. Even if that meant sailing across the Damned Sea, indulging piracy, traversing the world to faraway wonders or … well, even if that meant trusting the sideburns-sporting, pity-pleading – _exiled, unwanted_ – Prince of the Southern Isles.

Little did she know… the story to come would require her to partake in all of the above. But not just for Anna's sake. Sooner or later, the fate of the world would come into the fray and Elsa's quest to save it was about to start. Right then, right there –

"Take me to him."

"Your Majesty, you are-"

"Take me to him." There was no room for argument, she was practically snarling.

" _ **Now**_."

 **༺** **…** **༻** **༺** **…** **༻** **༺** **…** **༻** **༺** **…** **༻** **༺** **…** **༻** **༒** **༺** **…** **༻** **༺** **…** **༻** **༺** **…** **༻** **༺** **…** **༻** **༺** **…** **༻**

* * *

 **DUN DUN DUUUUUN! (Author's Note)**

 **I sincerely hoped you enjoyed my story, if you would possibly have time please leave a quick comment so I know what I am doing right/wrong.**

 **I know it was long, but this chapter was all about setting up the story so that in following chapters I can get down to business. It's gonna be one heck of an adventure, promise!**

… **But if you made it to the end, perhaps I did something right and you wouldn´t mind reading the following chapters?**

 **I hope I fit into the Frozen fandom ok,**

 **Seloue xx**


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